Francisco Asenjo Barbieri(1823 - 1894)

Madrileño Francisco Asenjo, born 3rd August 1823,
later adopted the name of Barbieri in honour of his maternal grandfather,
manager of the Teatro de la Cruz where the young boy first came into
contact with theatre and music. His first music teacher was José
Ordóñez Mayorito, and in 1837 he entered the Madrid
Conservatory, studying widely - clarinet, piano, vocal and compositional
studies - under Ramón Broca, Pedro Albéniz,
Baltasar Saldoni and Ramón Carnicer respectively. Between
1841 and 1844 he made a living as peripatetic singer, clarinetist, copyist,
piano teacher and writer of popular songs and dances, as well as academic
chorus master. He inaugurated his operatic career with Il Buontempone
(1847, in Italian), but also founded La España Musical to promote
native Spanish opera. He supported his extra-musical work through journalism,
music criticism (for La Ilustración) and as copyist, prompter and
translator at the Teatro Real.

As a step
towards his ideal of creating a distinctively Spanish theatrical form he
abandoned Italian opera, writing his first zarzuela in 1850. He was central to
the group of composers, including Oudrid, Gaztambide and Arrieta working from 1851 at the Teatro del
Circo, directing the chorus as well as providing many original stage works.
1856 saw the founding of the Teatro de la Zarzuela, and from the 1860's
Barbieri broadened his activities even further, founding the Society for
Orchestral Music (1866) and introducing much of the German symphonic
repertoire to Madrid, as well as publishing a wide variety of books on music,
politics and other topics. He died, loaded with honors, recognized at home and
abroad as the father figure of Spanish music, on 19 February 1894 in his
beloved Madrid.

Barbieri's
contribution to the renaissance of the nation's cultural life cannot be
overemphasized. He was the most influential Spanish composer of the nineteenth
century, cultivating the growth of a national musical style quite distinct from
its Italianate roots though his series of zarzuelas grandes that followed the
ground-breaking Jugar con fuego of 1851.
His music is uneven, but works of the quality of Los diamantes de la
Corona (1854), El Diablo en el poder (1856) and Entre mi mujer y
el negro (1859) exhibit increasing dramatic confidence and melodic power.
The series culminated in the magnificent national epic Pan y Toros (1864); though his comic masterpiece
is El barberillo de Lavapiés
(1874), a miracle of raw popular spirit, musical subtlety, ironic wit and
political fervor which remains the cornerstone of the zarzuela tradition. The
influence he had over later composers may justly be compared to Glinka's in
Russia, revealing new possibilities and paths towards a genuinely Spanish style
of composition in all musical fields.